Tag archives: online marketing

Puma and The Velocity push

Puma is running a pan-European online advertising campaign to promote its Velocity boot (v1.06). The online effort is strictly connected with above-the-line ads inspired to the African Nations Cup. Rich media ads using Eyeblaster technology are currently running in the UK, Germany, France and The Netherlands while in Norway and Sweden more traditional formats have been preferred. Brand Republic explains the campaign targets men aged 17-24 taking them to a personalized website which aims at generating viral buzz. Actually, after watching the pumafootball site, I realize the idea isn’t very original. See, for example, this campaign by Electronic Arts.

Interviews from hell

The minisite “Interviews from hell” created by Modem Media and Pistol Marketing for Kendall Tarrant’s recently won the silver medal at the EurobestLive 2005. “Interviews from Hell” features six films of extremely unsuitable candidates to highlight Kendall Tarrant’s endline: “It’s not just the people we put in front of you. It’s the people we don’t.”

What Makes Coffee Good?

Starbucks has launched a minisite to explain what makes coffee good. Coming from the city of Illy Caffe’ and being my father a “barista” the site immediately got my attention. I think they created a nice online experience to take people “behind the scenes”. Content is divided in four sections and presents videos, tips and pictures and some interactive tools to explain the “brewing process”. The site was created by Second Story Interactive.

Making forms look nicer (and perform better)

Who said online forms are boring create (and to fill out)? If you’re looking for some inspiration, take a look at the form Bos Advertising created for Ricola. While they gather information from users willing to win a vacation to Switzerland they also deliver branded messages on Ricola’s herbs. It’s nice to see and apparently pretty effective since a lot of people submitted their data. We need to remember people want to fill in forms as soon as possible, so you cannot ask for too much of their time just because you want the form to look nice. Of course once again the point is about delivering relevant content. If it isn’t relevant it might just become annoying and prevent people from completing the data entry. If it’s relevant and nicely presented, then the conversion rates will be more likely to grow.

Fineco, online marketing the poor way

Italian online bank Fineco has just kicked off an Internet campaign asking users “what’s your excuse not to have Fineco?“. Fnac already launched the “excuses” a few months ago in France; what’s the incentive for users to submit their excuses? there is no prize to win nor any other advantage is offered; where is the call to action? what’s the campaign goal? after submitting the excuse nothing happens, users aren’t invited ask for more info on the banking service, nor they are taken to a sign-up page, there is just a “Discover the advantages” on the top of the top right of the page, far away from where you click/look for the excuse.. Sorry for the nasty comments, but once again I’m disappointed by the way online marketing is done in Italy. This campaign from Fineco is a waste of money. Please, don’t tell me their goal is just branding. Branding cannot be your only goal, especially when you’re selling online services.

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It’s Beaujolais Nouveau time (online)

Thursday Nov 17th the 2005 Beaujolais Nouveau will be released on the market and even it’s a wine, and by definition a very traditional product, there is an online campaign to promote it. I love the idea (and I love the Beaujolais Nouveau also). It’s a flashy website, quite interesting to visit to find out more about this excellent wine that every year is able to create a lot of expectations around its new edition (is this the right word? sorry…). There is even a blog, but they probably need some advices on how to run it properly. I’ll be happy to help, in exchange of a couple of bottles…

Heineken, online marketing with Google Image Search

Here in The Netherlands interactive agency Qi has launched an innovative campaign for Heineken taking advantage of Google Image Search. To promote the Heineken’s Tapvat (a sort of portable beertender) they have created a personalized postcard generator and a competition that allows visitors to win they favorite travel destination. All you have to do is to type in the city you’d like to visit. The system connects to Google Image Search and comes up with a series of pictures. Pick the one your prefer and the site will create your personalized postcard.

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Online marketing to kids: Nestlé Picoland

In France, Nestlé has recently launched a website for its Chocapic brand to engage kids and build a relationship with them online. It’s an heavy Flash website created by Touche Etoile, full of goodies to entertain young consumers and introduce “Pico” the brand mascotte.

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Ikea: there is life outside work

Take a look at this nice campaign by Ikea launched to promote their kitchen range in the UK. The website idea is that the cheaper the kitchen, the less you have to work to pay for it. So, basically, the message is “buy at Ikea, work less, and enjoy your life”! This is definitively a very good example of how online marketing should (try to) be.The concept is brilliant also the advertainment stuffs on the site are engaging and entertaining. You can take a test and check if you’re working too much, you can calculate the hours of work you save by buying at Ikea and you can even get an update on what has happened in the world while you were too busy working. [via Adrants]

Top 10 web design mistakes of 2005

This post is about usability, and yes, the (arrogant) usability guru Jakob Nielsen is the guy who listed the Top 10 web design mistakes of 2005. No matter what’s your role in the agency, remember usability does affect online marketing. A great concept can fail if the text is too small, the website takes a life time to load or only Explorer users can experience it. So read this article carefully and make sure to avoid doing the same mistakes.